The days of game-changing objects may be over, but the company's still got some design juice

From 2001 to about 2010 we were spoiled with revolutionary Apple products: The iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. All were category-busters, game-changers. In the years since, nothing (in my opinion) as impactful has emerged from Cupertino.

But, as their product line-up matures, it's nice to see they've still got some design juice. It seems that for the foreseeable future it will be incremental improvements to existing categories, rather than Holy-Shit-I-Need-That moments, and I'm okay with that.

A good case in point is Apple's new Touch Bar, announced for their updated MacBook Pros. For those of you that haven't seen it yet, take a look:

Enter a caption (optional)

It sounded kooky to me at first, but after seeing it in action, its value became obvious. I wouldn't wait outside overnight and trample you in the morning to get one of these, but I can instantly think of ways I'd use it. I like that you can customize it via drag-and-drop, and I'd love to use it to scroll through an Adobe Premiere timeline. In both Photoshop and Microsoft Word, I can think of at least a half-dozen commands I'd like up there.

The larger trackpad seems nice too, though I'd need to test it out in person; I'm worried about false-positive hand-heel hits while I'm typing.

In any case, do you think my earlier assessment is correct, about it being incremental change rather than game-changers from here on out from Apple? Their long-term car project was recently scuttled, or at least gutted; that notwithstanding, do you think Apple's got more revolutionary stuff up their sleeve?

The latest design news, jobs & events. Straight to you every other week.

Join over 300,000 designers who stay up-to-date with the Core77 newsletter...

5 Comments

I've long been a fan of Apple hardware, but this appears to be a nicer version of the feature that drove me up the wall on a previous Lenovo (work) laptop. The absence of physical buttons makes touch-use all but impossible. That, combined with the fact that they change with context means that the user must take their eyes from the screen and finger from the touchpad to do something that could be done... in an on-screen toolbar. In my experience, re-focusing on the secondary screen, locating my desired function, and taking action would invariably break the flow of whatever task I was looking to complete.

While these aren't a safety issue like in auto infotainment systems, I'm just not seeing the benefit of "buttons" that require the user to shift their focus. Function-shifting buttons could be useful- but this feels more "because we can" than "because it's useful." Combined with Apple's premature abandonment of the standard USB and SD card slots (and the Dongle Hell that choice brings), I don't see myself purchasing another Mac any time soon.

&g do you think Apple's got more revolutionary stuff up their sleeve? t;

Not really, Apple has abandoned the Creative Market completely at this point. Tim Cook is an empty suit that is only concerned about money, there was never any REAL money in the MBPs and iMacs, and their complete disregard for both prove that they dont care anymore.

They are only going to focus on handhelds and wearables, only a matter of time before they move on from the iPad experiment as well. Tablets are becoming much more than just upscaled phones, and Apple is miles behind from a technical standpoint right now.

I use a 15" MacBook Pro with a dual Apple 27" display at work, and the MacBook is closed all the time. So bigger trackpad and fancy touch bar don't matter to me. I want bigger hard drive space and faster processors. The SSD drives are nice for the small footprint, but they are crazy expensive, $1200 to upgrade to a 2TB Drive! Maybe I should just have a Mac Pro; miss the G3 and G4 tower days.

They've had the last four years to make incremental changes. This is just too little, too late. Their core market of designers and content creators have much better options out there now, and they run Windows. They integrate Wacom-style drawing surfaces.. right into the main display, which can either fold or detach into a tablet. A tablet that runs a full OS, at that.

Look. I don't rally for brands. My Macbook Pro from 2008 lasted me waaay too long and still runs okay. I like both major OS's, but Apple's releases for the past few years tell me that they listen more to 'the market' than to the actual humans their products are for.

Introducing the new Communication Design MPS program at Parsons

Digital product design is a rapidly growing field that engages unique individuals with skillsets that unite traditional communication design principles with user experience capability and digital software skills. In an increasingly tech-driven world, more skilled digital product designers will be needed to create authentic and innovative digital touchpoints. Because digital

These allow designers to experience handicaps firsthand while testing their own products

Design researcher Dr. Sam Waller points out an interesting conundrum: Most designers have good vision. Or at least, access to corrective measures that enable good vision. Because you can't earn a living manipulating CAD drawings if you can't see them in the first place. What this means is that most

...and how they cleverly integrate both technology and physical solutions

This is hilarious, and a prime example of how Japan is able to perfectly blend old and new things to create unique experiences: They've got a virtual reality videogame called "Fear of Heights" where your sole mission is to rescue a cat that has crawled onto the edge of a

Why can we Tweet cat videos, but the government can't message a thumbnail?

When a then-unnamed bomber detonated his homemade bomb in New York City on September 17th, injuring dozens, he used a cell phone as a timer. Several mornings later, I was in downtown Manhattan when my own cell phone made the "emergency alert" noise. Here was the message: